Origins Of The Flapper Dress

Flapper dresses signalled the changing landscape of society when they became very popular during the 1920s. At that time girls shocked their parents with the short bob hair cut and dresses that came to the knees. Prior to that dresses always ended below the ankles and absolutely no skin was on show. All this changed and suddenly the slim silhouette and boyish figures were now the in look and flapper dresses became de rigueur.

This change came about because the restrictions of wartime were gone and this period in history came to be known as the Art Deco movement, an era when Hollywood movies reigned. Jazz music was all the scene and women would dance the night away doing the Charleston in their flapper dresses, living their lives with gay abandon.

Notable Hollywood movies that depicted the era were the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and women like Mary Pickford and Bette Davis carried off the style with cool finesse.

Musicals that celebrated that era included Cole Porter’s Anything Goes, The Boyfriend, and No No Nannette.

So although flapper dresses originally entered fashion in the 1920s, the trend is still relevant today because elements can still be seen today on the catwalks of Paris and Milan where fashion designers continue to embrace the simple form of these dresses, adding their own twist to reinvent and update the basic style template.

Olivia Madden
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